


Tidings of Comfort

by Annabel7, courtneybgood



Category: National Theatre, Treasure Island - Lavery, Treasure Island - Robert Louis Stevenson
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Christmas Fluff, Domestic Fluff, F/M, Female Jim Hawkins, Lying Pirates, Threats of Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-25
Updated: 2020-12-25
Packaged: 2021-03-10 16:29:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,960
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28310172
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Annabel7/pseuds/Annabel7, https://archiveofourown.org/users/courtneybgood/pseuds/courtneybgood
Summary: Squire Trelawney had invited Captain Jim Hawkins back to Black Cove for Christmas. There was only one problem, and as usual, the problem was Long John Silver.(Or - indulgent Christmas fluff.)
Relationships: Jim Hawkins/Long John Silver
Comments: 9
Kudos: 7





	Tidings of Comfort

**Author's Note:**

> Happy holidays to our small, dedicated little fanbase. This was an absolute pleasure for us to write together, and we hope it has you feeling festive! Warning for off-screen, canon typical violence as well as canon typical hints at an underage relationship. Jim Hawkins is very much an adult during this story.

_And well I knew the talk they had, the talk that was of me,_

_Of the shadow on the household and the son that went to sea;_

_And O the wicked fool I seemed, in every kind of way,_

_To be here and hauling frozen ropes on blessed Christmas Day._

_Robert Louis Stevenson, Christmas at Sea_

  
  
  


She cannot leave her ship alone with him.

Whether or not he currently looked like a threat was beside the point, he was (he _is_ ) a murderer, a liar, and a thief, and who knows if his old ways were just waiting below the surface for the perfect opportunity. Captain Hawkins slept with a knife under her pillow. 

No. Leaving him alone with ample time to get half an ocean away was out of the question. Never mind that he carried sugar in his pockets for the parrot. That he talked in his sleep.

“Silver?” she called from her desk over the partition where her bunk, and her pirate, were. No answer. “Silver!”

“Come... _back_ to bed, girl.”

“It’s nearly nine in the morning.” She snapped her logbook shut. “And I have things. To do. You do too. Up.”

“Ten minutes, darlin’.” He yawned, dismissive, and rolled over. Jim wrinkled her nose. Lazy pirate.

It is fine. She can lock up the deck and inform the dock hands that the ship will be nearly empty but not scheduled for departure until the end of Christmas. She can place orders for supplies, round up her crew with instructions and dates for optional shore leave. She can do it all by herself. But she was used to him butting in to help without order or invitation. Silver had a tendency to lean over her shoulder while she worked, correct her arithmetic, scribble new arrows on her maps ( _her_ maps!) She’ll never grasp how quick he is with sums and numbers, in spite of his total inability to read words, beyond ‘reales’, ‘escados’, ‘doubloons’, ‘shillings’ and ‘pounds.’ He can recognise those words. 

He can spell his name now, too. And Jim’s. And write the word parrot. Jim smiled to herself, then covered the smile with the palm of her hand. 

The invitation from Squire Trelawney rested above her log book. The seal had already been broken. She’d read it thrice over. 

_I am a lonely old Squire, I must admit. You must visit me this Christmas. I understand your reluctance to visit Black Cove since dear Grandma Hawkins passed, but I insist. I will put you up in my manor. Silent Sue still works and lives on my grounds, and also looks forward to seeing you, I’m sure! I will send a carriage to Bristol for you on the 19th of December._

A summoning more than invitation. Never mind her sailors, her schooner. 

And then, the postscript.

_You mentioned in your last letter (and how long ago that seems!) that you were committed to a sailing man. If that courtship is still successful, you are welcome to ask him along. I look forward to being regaled with tales of seafaring!_

Her last letter to Squire had been sent months ago. Squire had kept asking her if she intended to marry, if she was planning on settling down and giving up the nonsense and danger of a life at sea. It put her in mind of how he used to dismiss Doctor Livesey’s practice. How Trelawney seemed to detest hard and decent work. Still, she was fond of him. He was family. He had taken the time to ask her for Christmas. She can’t remember the last time she celebrated a Christmas.

(A lie. The last time she celebrated Christmas, she was nineteen, and Granny Hawkins ate her lunch in bed, bemoaning that she hadn’t been able to help her poor, hardworking Jemima bake the Plum Pudding. She had fallen asleep by two in the afternoon, and Jim had quietly played cards with Livesey before having an early night herself. In the New Year, Grandma passed away, and drifted up into the bright, starry sky.) 

Christmas with her old, funny friend could be good. Needed, perhaps. 

Christmas with her pirate-cook crewman and bed-warmer? Well. It was hard to picture. Maybe she could give him some orders to complete on her behalf, let him hire some new hands to come on for the end of winter. 

“Is this a new knife under your pillow?” Silver purred, like he’d discovered a small sweet rather than a hidden weapon.

She _cannot_ leave her ship alone with him. 

“I shouldn’t have even broached the idea with you. You can’t be seen there, and I won’t go without you.”

“Come now, _Captain_ Hawkins,” he groaned, reaching out and lifting her by the chin, “You’re tougher than that; you could live a few days without me, you just don’t trust me alone with this beautiful ship.”

“Either way, you can’t be seen in England or her territories.”

“ _Long John Silver_ can’t be seen. It’s just the old tosspotter. If I cut my hair he’d never know.”

“ _No_.”

“Oh! Don’t I have _just_ the thing,” Silver had crossed the room to his trunk, and Jim noticed that he hadn’t locked it. Strange, she thought. Hers was locked constantly unless she was looking into it. “Here we are! Nicked this off a line in Norway, how about it?” He held up an British Navy officer’s uniform. Worn here and there, but it still looked new, clean, and fine.

“Just watch,”

“I’d rather not.”

“Fine.” He pulled the partition shut with a snap, and Jim leaned back in her chair. She’d write to Trelawney, apologize, say she was intending to come but felt under the weather. She didn’t like to eat goose anyway. Used to have a pet goose. 

And it felt wrong eating poultry in front of Flint, even though Silver said more than once that Flint’s favorite treat was roast chicken, to her horror. 

“What about this?” Silver’s voice interrupted her thoughts. 

“What in the world have you…?” He had shaved, that much was noticeable, but it wasn’t unnattractive. Nor was the wicked look on his face as, with careful maneuvering of his crutch and real leg, he spun around gracelessly to show off the uniform. 

“Abracadabra, and you’ve got yourself a fine and proper gentleman.”

Confound him.

-

Silver stood abreast of her, dressed in the colours and stripes of the Royal Navy. He wore a white curled wig and a battered tricorn. He looked tall, and strong, and a little younger, having shaved his beard down to stubble. Jim scowled at him. He had no business looking quite as good as this. It was an awful trick.

“What’s got you a-starin’, all aghast?” He leered, looping his arm in hers as they waited by port. Carriages went to and fro, but none stopped for the pair or called out the name ‘Hawkins!’ Jim squinted at him.

“Nothing, Silver.” No response. No, go on, she’s got more to say.

“It’s just —” She paused.

“Hm, what?”

“You look respectable.”

Silver winced with offense.

-

“Miss Hawkins?”

“Captain Hawkins.” She corrected automatically, pulling herself up into the carriage. Silver ducked in after her, tilting his tricorn in the direction of their driver. Jim had to admit it was a nice touch. Thankfully, he didn’t say a word.

“Beautiful part of the country, Devon.” The old carriage driver sighed, as they clattered homewards. It had been raining torrentially since they got out of Bristol a good few hours before. Her body ached, her shoulder continually thumping against Silver’s. At one point, he ended up holding her against his side to stop the carriage from doing it for them, but let her go when a particularly deep rut in the road caused her skull to knock against his.

“Makes you miss the clear waters of the South, don’t it?”

“A little...but it’s home. A home. My friends’ home.”

“Do you think of Black Cove as your home?”

“It isn’t _mine._ I let the inn as a whole to her new mistress and keeper, but the property itself is still owned by the county,” she spoke distantly. Her relationship with Black Cove had never been particularly close, even though she knew all the corners of the woods and nooks in the cliffs along the beach. The land was her old haunting ground, even if its edges had once felt like a cage. The _Polaris_ made her a bird: no wall, no ocean could keep her contained ever again. “I don’t have a home. I have my ship.” She looked out the window and took a deep breath. “I hate this road. I tried running away on it once, but I kept falling in the cross-hatched carriage tracks.”

“You ran away?”

“Three times.”

“I thought you would have been a good, rule-abiding child?”

“So did I. Maybe I was never as good as I liked to think...But I ran away when I found out that my uncle died at sea. I was only seven or eight, and it was —I didn’t know what I was feeling, I just needed to _move_. So when I found out I ran, and made it as far as that last crossroads before I was caught by a carriage heading to Black Cove and they took me back home screaming.”

“Slippery hellcat your whole life, then?”

She ignored him.

“Then I was...I don’t know, twelve? I found out that Grandma wasn’t going to try to send me to school; she said I could already read.” 

Jim glanced to the side, gnawing at her bottom lip. Still bitter. Silver raised his brow.

“Well. Sounds like you. Always so hopeful, even for the impossible.” 

“I rolled up a change of clothes and put on my Father’s old coat, left around midnight. The coat dragged on the ground but I made it within sight of Bristol not long afternoon... Realized I didn’t know where to go to find a school, and even if I found one, I didn’t have money. Summer didn’t go very well, and we only ate eggs in the morning, and maybe supper later. So...I slept in the woods against a tree, walked home. Grandma was angry, I could tell, but she didn’t say anything...Don’t know why I was thinking of it.”

“That’s only twice.”

“Hmm?”

“You said you ran away three times. So. What brought about the last one?”

“Same basic idea, I’m sure. The usual fare, of me getting fed up. Bored.”

“Jim.”

“Don’t use that tone of voice with me. I’m your captain.”

“And now I’m your mighty _admiral_ and honored husband.”

“If this is how you’re about to act all the time we're stuck upon land, I’ll expose you myself.”

“Why the third time? No more trying to lie, _you can’t_.”

“Silver, I ran off. Kids do it all the time!”

“Alright. Alright. Fair enough.” he said softly, looking out the opposite window.

“I was almost eighteen. Grandma told me I couldn’t serve on a ship. Grandma told me she needed the help, and that I’d had enough adventure. I was so angry I told her she should just burn the inn down. She could have lived the rest of her life on the gold I brought home! Said she could keep my gold, and I’d work at sea for my own future... Grandma would hear none of it, so I ran off in the morning, carriage that time, and intended to head towards London from Bristol to say goodbye to a friend--”

“Who?”

“She--a niece of the squire’s-- _anyway,_ I found Livesey in Bristol. Told her goodbye. She called me heartless and cruel for walking out on my sick grandmother. I didn’t know Grandma was sick. She was a stubborn old mule and hadn’t told me. I went back to the inn and stayed there until she passed. It wasn’t pretty. You can shoot me, if I ever get that sick.” Jim laughed mirthlessly. “I went to the courthouse, hired a lawyer to deal with renting out the inn, and I left on a ship as a deckhand the next week. Served before the mast, turned twenty-one at sea and on my return, the squire surprised me with the _Polaris_.”

Silver looked her up and down, impassive, like he was sizing up the truth of her story.  
“Yeah, I know that last part. And aren’t you still proud as punch, having got yourself a ship only your rich uncle could have bought you.” 

Squire wasn’t her uncle, of course, but it was beside the point. Furious, Jim punched Silver hard in the arm. Silver, for his part, didn’t flinch, his expression shifting into a bemused smirk. He thought her life so easy, and unjustly so. 

“Neither here nor there, of course. Any sailor would give his left leg to sail under the formidable Captain Hawkins.” He wasn’t joking. His earnestness saved him from another swift punch. 

The closer the carriage drew in towards Black Cove, the more outrageous their plan seemed. Jim wasn’t sure what exactly she’d been thinking. Put a wig on the pirate, that’ll fool him. Trelawney is a dunce, but he has _eyes._ A sweat came over her, clammy on her forehead, as they passed through St. Elias. Soon the old familiar windmill came into view, the Tin mine. The Doctor’s old practice. Surely she couldn’t still live there, Jim had thought, pale with impending dread. 

It was in the Black Woods she was tempted to feign a fainting spell or claim motion sickness (ships, she thought, were invented because man was not fit to travel by carriage) to stop this absolutely mad plan. If Silver noticed her wavering constitution, he kindly pretended not to, instead opting to point out every little feature of her old town with increasing bemusement. Look at that falling apart water mill, Jim. Yes, I can tell it’s _always_ been there. 

Then they were rattling slower than before, and the artfully trimmed trees that framed Squire Trelawney’s manor were coming into view. Jim grabbed for Silver’s hand and grimaced. 

Trelawney hall was big and jovial, much like the man who had owned it for all these years. 

And - Oh god, Squire Trelawney was waiting on the lawn. 

From that distance, he still looked much the same as he ever had. The white wig, a portly figure almost lost against the backdrop of his manor. Perhaps a little more portly than he had been before, Jim noticed absently, underneath the sound of thudding war drums, of her own heartbeat. 

He was waving at them with enthusiasm. From beside her, a small snort of derision. She gripped Silver’s hand even tighter.

“Stay in the carriage. Take it back to Bristol.” She hissed, eyes stuck on the ever-growing figure of the squire, growing larger and clearer with the clatter of hooves. “I’ve misjudged,” _as usual,_ “He is going to recognise you, and you’ll be hung. Just stay in the carriage.”

“Young Jim Hawkins, returned!” The squire exclaimed, his voice traveling across the lawn. He spread his arms wide, then started an undignified sort of half-jog towards the carriage. The carriage came to a stop. “Can it truly be our old cabin girl?”

Silver raised his eyebrows at her, and tipped his tricorn further down over his eyes. 

“He remembers our last journey together well enough, then.” He muttered, low and fast, and Jim fumbled with the latch of the carriage door before practically falling out onto the cobbled stone. She took a couple of steadying steps hurriedly onto the lawn to avoid tumbling to her knees, and then found herself steadied by the squire. He drew her in for a firm hug. It was as he might hug a young man, a returning seaman, a compatriot. Not a young and recently wed ward. This was something that Jim remembered in an instant she loved about her old squire. His forgetfulness about her exact nature, about the proper ‘way’ to handle her. _Boy, girl, both, neither!_

Heart racketing in her chest, she hugged him back, hard. The soft thud behind her of a sailor dismounting onto solid, well maintained land took her back to reality. 

Jim held the squire a little firmer still, as if she could keep him in this embrace forever, and thus prevent him from laying eyes on her tag-along, her baggage. Her looming, guilty secret. But the squire cleared his throat and stepped back, perhaps remembering he was holding a young woman to his chest and not some slip of a boy who had run off to sea.

“My, how you’ve grown! You look like…”

He squinted at her, and Jim could see then how much he really had aged, even in the six or so years since her permanent departure from Black Cove. He was paler, and his face hung a little looser in spite of his otherwise increased girth. 

“Not a pirate, I hope?” Jim joked weakly, curtly, ill advisedly. 

The distinct footfall of Silver, coming around the back of the carriage, the step and skidding drag. He had not hid in the carriage, he had not abandoned ship as ordered. A mutineer to the last. 

Trelawney barked a scandalised laugh. 

“No, never, Jim. You look like a grown woman. Albeit unlike any other grown woman that you might find in Black Cove.” 

More awkward in his affection now, he clapped Jim on the shoulder. He was already looking past her, over the top of her head. 

When Jim turned and looked at Silver, he looked well kempt, polite, genial and clean shaven. His tricorn was angled back, his wig was straight, his expression wide eyed. He looked innocent. Jim knew then that it would work. He still had his own face, of course. It didn’t matter. She barely recognised him. 

“Admiral Gold, what a pleasure!” The squire proclaimed, even going so far as to salute Silver, with a little bounce in his step. How Jim regretted using that name in a letter as a throwaway joke, a moniker for her constant companion.

Squire proffered a hand. “I am Squire Trelawney. I am the magistrate of this humble community, and something of an acting guardian to Jim - to Jemima. I must say, was it hurried nuptials at sea? Very romantic, for sure, but I was a trifle hurt to be excluded from any sort of ceremony!”

Jim felt relief washing over her; gentle, foaming tides.

Silver shook the squire's hand firmly.  
“And thousand pardons, Squire! There wasn’t much ceremony to speak of, trust in that. We’re the type to prefer a simple affair, Mrs. Gold and I.” His voice still sounded the same. It was such a distinct voice. The tides drew back, leaving Jim exposed for a moment, uncertain. 

“That’s no excuse!” The squire tsked, jovial. “A wedding is for the guests, never the couple!”

He believed it. He believed that Jim had married a naval officer, and that she brought him along for a Christmas dinner. And why not? Why shouldn’t that be feasible to anyone at all besides Jim herself? Jim, who knew from the moment she saw him again - half dead (but alive!) and stewing in his own cups - that she was lashed to Long John Silver, whether she liked it or not. 

-

“Then the monster shut it’s gapin’, stinkin’ maw at the same moment I fired--but _alas_ , it was too late for my leg, poor and mangled as it were!” 

“Oh! How dreadfully horrible, Admiral!” 

Jim had been listening to the outlandish account of just why her ‘husband’ had such a very pronounced limp for nearly forty minutes now, and was unable to _not_ roll her eyes. Her old friend was quite taken with Admiral Gold, but she found this persona, if possible, more insufferable than his usual one. Yes, he looked good in the part, but at what cost? 

“Aye. So my adventuring has been sadly limited until I ran aground of Captain Hawkins here.” The syrupy affection is false, so she flashed back an equally false smile. 

“And what do you do on the _Polaris?_ ”

“He captains behind my back, is what he does,” Jim answered for him, afraid that for all his theatrics and lies, ‘Gold’ would still answer that he was her cook. Or _worse_ , claim that he earned his keep with his--

“No! I wouldn’t dream of it, lass.” He had one hand clutching his heart with so much dramatic effort Jim felt a lurch of embarrassment on his and the squire’s behalf. “I only offer some advice here and there, what with a-having all the--naval experience,” 

“You should give him a proper chance, Jim, he sounds very knowledgeable!”

“And trustworthy as a devil,” Jim half mumbled, but ‘Gold’ reached between the gap of their separate wingback chairs and took her hand, kissing it longer than necessary. Damn the fact that she’d forgone gloves.

“Jim, you never did tell me how you found such a _fantastic_ match--I’ll forgive you for not letting me host the wedding party only if you tell it in full.”

“We didn’t have a wedding party,” She shrugged. “It was officiated with a license that we registered last time we docked in the Continent.” 

“Well, then you should have your party now! Yes! What a marvelous idea! I’ll have Doctor Livesey and her maid, we can have canapes -!”  
“No!” she half jumped from her chair, before explaining calmly: “We aren’t...we’re quiet people, we don’t like a fuss.”

“Nonsense!” Trelawney clapped his hands together. “Everyone loves a good party! In fact, I--” He stopped himself, looked like he might have actually been thinking, and changed his tone with a wide smile. “Well, I will still forgive you if you tell me the story. Romance on the high seas! What adventure!”

Jim looked at the pirate next to her in a gentleman’s finery. _Romance on the high seas. Indeed, I scraped you up off the docks in Tortuga looking for a job_ , she thinks, not entirely lacking affection. 

“It was...in the Spanish Main... we had to stop for supplies. And, well, there...I found _Admiral_ Gold.” The squire blinked.

“ _Mrs_. Gold found me a-working at the guardstation of an East India port, south of Providence. Cruel men sail those waters on dark nights, and the crown can never be too careful. Came across a ship registered as _Polaris_ and thought: there! That’s a proper name for a ship! Never be lost again, and had to see her in person. Didn’t think the captain would be half so... pretty.”

“I didn’t think the old admiral would be much more than another unwarranted and unasked opinion on how a young woman can’t possibly run a ship on her own.” Jim didn’t like this fable. As if Silver had ever come to her all gleaming and heroic. As if she didn’t find him half-dead, lurking in some nameless bar in Tortuga, with only a crutch and a couple of gleaming medallions to his name.

“That’s not true, darlin’.” He hadn’t let go of her hand yet, and if not for the fact that she was supposed to be playing the part of a besotted newlywed, she’d have yanked it back by now. “You weren’t speaking with me for five minutes when you lit up so _bright_.”

“Not true. I thought you were awful and vaguely threatening.”

“And that winter morning, you looked cold, miserable and pretty too.”

“Was I wrong to think it was just shameless charming to get your way?”

“It worked, didn’t it?” Damn his smile along with the rest of him in that crisp blue coat.

Trelawney interrupted, of course. 

“Why on Earth would you be threatened by a man of the Royal Navy, Jim? I thought you made of, well! Stronger stuff than that!” He chortled, nodding at the good Admiral Gold as if they were in some kind of cahoots about the nature of being men, or something atrocious like that. 

“Oh, you never can be too careful on the seas, sir!” Silver crowed, squeezing at Jim’s hand, since she was surreptitiously trying to worm it out of his grasp. “Bein’ a _woman_ captain, and all.”

Trelawney tutted sympathetically, nodded in solemn apology to Jim. 

“Ah. I can’t imagine.”

Despite herself, she found herself wishing that Doctor Livesey was here. Maybe she’d even call the British guard on Silver and have him hauled off. That sounded like a fantastic idea.

Then, more victuals. The fireplace had a garland of pinecones strung across it. Squire’s finest brandy, and as the alcohol sank in and Silver’s stories became more complex and difficult to keep track of, Jim realized that she’d either have to kill off ‘Admiral Gold’ in a letter to the squire, or else keep up this charade forever. She tipped back the rest of her glass and poured another. Trelawney would be more heartbroken than she would. He seemed incredibly taken by the fellow. Jim could already picture the eulogies. She yawned, genuine and tired, exhausted from the worry, from travel, and from her heart surely aging a year in the hour leading up to the squire’s door.

“Ready to turn in?”

“No, no I’m fine.”

“You’re sure?” There was something close to concern in his voice, the only real affection of his that she sensed all day. 

“Maybe, soon.” She hated that she smiled at him, genuine and matching his own; she wondered if he really had gone this soft, that he really was so eager for a chance to be alone with her.

“Look at the two of you, such love birds. Oh to be young and in love--or, well...Admiral, how old did you say you were?”

“He didn’t.” Jim chirped and took another sip of her drink.

“Thirty two?” Silver tried.

Jim almost spat out the brandy.

“Life before the mast never did a man any favors, did it?” The squire said, as if he understood the toll of a sailors plight, having been to sea a sum total of a single round trip. Jim grinned, nodded. Silver didn’t know his technical age, but both assumed he was north of forty. Easily north of forty. Jim giggled into her glass. 

Silver looked at her like she was something he’d only just lighted upon, something juicy and fresh that he'd decided to eat, and she turned her eyes back down to try and stop the warmth creeping up her collar from turning into a blush.

“I’m so glad that you could make it, Jim,” The squire said, some vague echo of the paternal, or at least familial affection in his voice. 

“I’m glad too,” she smiled. 

“And you too, Admiral. I don’t know if she has told you the full story yet, but Jim and I are both survivors of a most terrible sea disaster, and it’s a comfort to me in my old age to see that the survivors are all living their lives and moving on from it.”

“Oh yes, wretched business, but let’s not relive that story,” Silver said dismissively.

“No, no, not during Christmastime,” the squire nodded and Jim sank deeper into her chair, musing slightly if Silver could be a danger to the squire, and that she likely should have thought of that beforehand. 

Silver wouldn’t kill anyone. (He _would._ He just _hasn’t_ killed anyone recently. Jim shrugged that thought away, quick as it came.) It had been closer to two years with him on her ship than one. To her knowledge, he hadn’t had reason to dispatch anyone in that time. He never did anything outwardly to make her mistrust him. She knew where he was at nearly all times. More so, her ship’s doctor was staying in Bristol with family for the week, and he had Flint with him. If Silver wanted to see that precious bird again, well. He’d have to behave himself for now.

Jim liked to think she played into it somewhere too, that Silver might behave for her. Maybe he could be capable of it, caring. The longer she kept him, the harder it was to fathom that it could be another of Silver’s tricks. Of course, that could simply make it his greatest trick yet.

Perhaps he could read her face. She never was good at hiding things from him.

“At the risk of cutting short conversation, I think it’s time Mrs. Gold and I retire.”

“Oh, of course, it is late and you must have had such a long ride in from the city in this terrible weather.” The squire paused, with an apologetic look at Jim, “The poor girl is very afraid of storms, almost went overboard once during the most brutal of hurricanes that you ever did see.”

“Squire, I hardly think--”

“And don’t I know it, saved from certain death only by the quick hands of a strong crewman…” Silver stood from his chair, and offered Jim his hand. She wished she didn’t take it, but instinct prevailed in the half-second, and he pulled her up quick enough she almost stumbled into him. “I’m eternally grateful to the devil, if only for that.”

“Who?”

“Squire, it was--Didn’t I ever say? It was--the cook who saved me from going overboard.” She wondered loosely why she didn’t disclose it before. She had told, or tried to tell, her stories of him as separate. One sea cook and best friend, the other pirate and villain. There is her cook, and her tormentor. 

“I didn’t know that,” the squire said, almost disinterested. “Well, I’ve had a room prepared for you each, there’s the blue room on the south landing, and the fourth suite on the left is the carnation room for Jim.”

“We--” Jim flushed. “We don’t? There is no space to spare on a ship.”

“Missus and I don’t like being far apart this far inland,” Silver said, with a sort of syrupy affection that was making her want to vanish. He was never like this with just the two of them.

“How _modern_.” The squire exclaimed, and it was hard to tell if he was disapproving or entertained. He rang a little bell that sat on the low table by the fire. Silver squinted at the bell, as if he couldn’t have guessed at its purpose even with a gun to his temple. 

The housekeeper swept in soundlessly, her dark hair swept up into a messy bun, with threads of coloured string woven into fine braids. A thin, almost elegant monobrow, and fine lines under her eyes, but Jim still recognised her instantly. There was a flicker of surprised warmth in her eyes, and Jim started to smile up at her instinctively, but then Silent Sue’s gaze moved slightly to the left, to the person in the armchair directly opposite Squire. 

Her eyes widened with a proper sort of terror. Her mouth hung open. Silver returned Sue’s gaze evenly, looking as if he was trying to place her. Of course. She wouldn’t be particularly memorable to him. One of the many victims of his piracy, his violence, another scared face in a crowd of people. Jim stood up, electrified. What a fool she’d been. 

“Sue!” She greeted weakly, spreading her arms wide, knowing that the game was up.  
“Of course, you remember our Silent Sue!” Squire Trelawney exclaimed. “Sue, Jim has returned to us with her new husband for Christmas, just as I wrote asking her to. Jim, Sue has risen in my estimation greatly, in fact I - good heavens! Whatever is the matter?”

Sue raised a trembling finger to point at Silver dead in the face, her eyes bulging now. With her other hand, she grasped vaguely in the direction of Jim, as if trying to get a hold of her, so they could all run from Long John Silver together, once more. 

“Looks as if she’s seen a ghost.” Silver drawled, reclined in his chair. 

A gasping breath from Sue, who surged forward to Squire Trelawney, grabbed him by both arms, and shook him.  
“What the devil has come over you? Unhand me, Silent Sue --!”

Sue pointed again at Silver, her eyes imploring, her face very close to the squires. The squire frowned.  
“Admiral Gold? Do you know him?” 

A frantic nod from Sue. She looked back to Jim, the questions and alarm playing openly on her face. Jim felt hot, almost as scared as Sue looked. Sue had every right to look that scared. Unlike her obligatory visits with Livesey and Ben and the squire, Jim had not seen much of the woman since her first ever sea voyage. The terror on her face in this moment took her back to another one, nine years ago, where Silver had had his men drown Sue’s friends, had them shot down, had them skewered. Jim turned her face away from Sue, and Sue’s expression darkened. Her entire body quaking, she pointed again, downwards, this time directly at Silver’s false leg — far less visible in the white stockings and black brogue, ill fitted as they were to the rigid, wooden appendage. 

Jim stepped in front of Silver as he rose slowly from his chair. 

“I think that she must!” He offered gently, and the smile on his face seemed so authentically puzzled, so genuinely kind-hearted. A nervous, squeaking laugh escaped Jim.

Sue disentangled herself from the squire and took a step back. She raised her arms again, but this time not to point or implore. Desperately, she mimed swiping a sword through the air, nodded again at Silver, then slapped her left shoulder. Jim understood her meaning. Where Flint used to perch, yes. 

“Although how she knows me --? Now. That _is_ a mystery.”

Trelawney watched Sue intently, a clueless frown on his face. “See there, she’s trying to tell us through mime. Swatting. Batting. Cricket? No. Oh dear, I was always atrocious at this game!” 

Sue’s lips pressed into a hard, thin line. Keeping her distance from Silver, she mimed taking a cutlass from her belt, and pointing it at Squire.

“Giving? A gift, a gift from you to me? Oh, Christmastime!” Squire was dancing from foot to foot. 

“That’s right, I’m here for Christmas!” Silver agreed, clapping his hands together and smiling broadly at Sue. The expression made Jim’s gut plummet. There was a promise of violence in the smile that she recognised, from a time long ago and long repressed. 

The housekeeper, in her neat dress and small stature, turned to Jim. She was older than Jim, but not as old as she had seemed when Jim was a child. There could be less than ten years between them. Oh, how she looked at her. She looked back to Silver, her horror fixed grimly, to Jim, eyes beseeching and accusing. Slowly, Sue shook her head, her jaw locked. 

“No?” Squire hummed. “Confound it. Well, Admiral Gold is Jim’s husband, and a retiree, never mind who you’ve taken him for. He’ll be joining us for Christmas, yes, alongside other old cohorts that I’m sure Jim will be glad to see.”

Sue blinked, then a hard, spiteful smile crept up on her face. She nodded once. Jim knew she was thinking of brighter cohorts than Squire, who would recognise the man who had terrorised them, and see Jim’s betrayal just as she had. 

-

“You’re _unbelievable_ ,” Jim hissed as the door shut behind them. She didn’t catch an answer, but saw his reckless grin as she pulled the screen in the corner open further to undress behind. 

“I thought you liked havin’ a _respectable_ man on your arm?”

“How am I supposed to remember _half_ of your lies tonight _?_ We are so very lucky that it’s just squire and the only person in the whole cove who can’t talk! What if she writes something down? What if she tells him everything? All they’ve got to do is find one real navy officer in Bristol out of hundreds and then they’ll know that there’s no such thing as an Admiral Gold-- why couldn’t you have been an ordinary sailor?”

“There isn’t no way that mute is learned enough to write.”

“ -You’re missing the point! You could hang-- _you will hang_ \-- if you’re caught and--”

“I won’t get caught.”

“That’s--” She tried to tug the screen back as he pushed it aside, but it was too late. He raised his eyebrows at her.

“I’ve only been recognized the one time since I died,”

“You didn’t die,” She complained.

“And that was by you, that I was spotted, so I think...we are,” He reached out, twirled one of her loose curls around a finger tip and drew away, “if only briefly, safe and sound here.” 

Jim let out a breath she’d been holding for too long, and pulled a thin shift on over her head to sleep in. She hung her coat, folded her shirt and trousers, and looked back to where Silver had left his entire costume, including the white wig on the floor. He was making quick, bored work of the buckles holding on his false leg, standing on the same side of the bed that he’d sleep on if this was her bunk in her staterooms.

“...Although, I may have to subtract that mute.”

Jim slammed the lid of their trunk, and gave him a very, very cold look. He held his hands up in a cavalier shrug.

“Only a joke, Jim!” He was neither amusing, nor convincing, all the while eying her up and down in the gauzy shift. This penchant of his had started out as intimidating, but now, so long after he had seen her in so many states of dress and undress it was almost-- _almost--_ sweet, she thought, him looking at her like she was worth the long gaze.

“If you hurt anyone, it will be my fault. I couldn’t bear that.” 

“Just a quip, girl. That mute Sue, she’ll stay hidden and scared-like, you trust me on that. Me, I am but a blagueur!” 

“Poor Silent Sue.” She sighed. Her remorse sounded pithy and inadequate even to her own ears.

It was the same problem as ever: he looked too normal, safe, and ordinary there on the opposite side of the bed. Especially now that his beard was trimmed, and his eyeliner washed off, reclined on the mountain of fine down feathers. He looked like a friend, if not altogether harmless. His near permanent aura of smugness was there too, but she was immune to it by now.

Drowsy with alcohol but still tense with stress, Jim propped a chair against the door, turned down the lamp, and crawled into the massive bed. After some stillness, his arms found her, trundled her into him. He’d bathed to fit the part, but up close to the seam of his skin, he still smelt like himself. Grimy and salty and just a little bit like meat. His stubble scratched at the lobe of her ear as he wordlessly rolled atop of her. Jim’s breath caught, and since the lamp was dim, she even let herself beam. 

-

It was the first morning in nearly three years that Jim hadn’t woken up in her own cabin in her own ship, but the disorientation didn’t last long. 

“Silver?” She nudged the snoring lump next to her. “What time is it?”

“Must be after ten,” he mumbled. 

“No!”

“Relax. We’re a-holidayin’. It was a _late_ night, darlin’,” he turned to face her, and tossed an arm around her narrow waist, “And a long day,” her hand found his, and she clasped it tight to her. “And you...slept awfully well for not havin’ your lucky charm,”

“Hmm? Charm?”

“I’ve never known you not to sleep with a knife. It’s a good thing I’ve got one.”

“You’ve--”

“Right here,” he leaned up a little, pulled an unsheathed knife from under his pillow, and pressed it carefully into her hands. “Still safe and sound. If anything were to have happened,”

He’d murdered men in their beds before; the fact echoed in her head once a week or so. She’d always kept her knife so close and, she thought, secret.

Jim lifted it. Heavy, solid, but still small enough to conceal. She thought, not for the first time, how she would do it if she had to.

Silver kissed a freckle constellation on her shoulder, and watched her with a smile as she toyed with the weight of the blade.

-

Silent Sue was nowhere to be seen at breakfast. Jim swallowed her shame and her breakfast, and thanked her lucky stars (Vega, Capella, Grandma). Silver picked up the scone with his hands and Jim shook her head minutely. He picked up his little silver fork and tried not to hold it like a shiv. The tea was hot and Squire was in a good mood. Despite everything, despite Sue, despite the pirate chewing with his mouth open next to her, Jim suspected _she_ might be in a good mood too. 

Scones, even though the blueberries were dried because it was winter, were a treat, and while her cook was good enough as far as ships cooks go, space in the larder was always limited. Squire passed a platter of oysters towards them magnanimously. 

"How did you find your room?"

"Perfectly cozy," Silver said, pausing to reach for the plate of oysters, raising the shell to his lips slowly. "Warm... _snug,_ even, but wonderfully accommodating…” 

Jim's toes curled in her boots even as she kicked him under the table. 

"I told you last time I visited that you have a beautiful manor," she said, trying her best to stop glancing back to Silver, "Compliments to the kitchen too, the food’s fantastic,"

“It’s not as if the food on the _Polaris_ isn’t,” 

“S-- _John_. Even the _best_ of cooks is limited on the variety of what we can store aboard.”

“You always seem to like what he comes up with,”

“Our cook knows only a few different recipes and is very lucky that I let him bring the chest of spices he _purchased_ in India.”

“And it’s most important that a cook is a trustworthy fellow than a talented one. I for one,” the squire said, almost forlorn, and Jim immediately soured, “Was horribly tricked by my last seacook. He turned out to be the falsest of confidants and a wicked, wicked creature.” What right did Trelawney have to feel so betrayed, Jim wondered bitterly. He was played for an idiot, but she had been played for a trusting, heartsick child. 

“What awful luck for the lot of you. Horrid business. Our cook is a wonderful man.” Silver tutted, tapping the side of his nose.

“Even if he doesn’t know when to stop talking,” Jim added.

“But our captain always has a _kind_ way of a-letting him know when he’s stepped too far.” The glint in his eye made her want to laugh, despite it, despite everything. 

Maybe she was still the same young girl, holding close this wonderful secret and being thrilled at whatever opportunity she had to indulge in it. Right then, the indulgence was leaving her boot against his under the table, a subtle touch that at sixteen she never had the nerve to try.

Maybe this would work. Silver wove truth and embellishments to craft outlandish stories of heroism and valor, and sometimes of blood--just enough to make Trelawney cringe, but never enough to ask him to stop. And they both were having a good time.

Maybe, five, ten years from now they could show up without the pretense. 

If Silver hadn’t run off by then. But for now, playing his new wife felt easy. Easier than it should, more real than it was. Silver making remarks about the food between outbursts about fighting Barbary pirates, she let her mind wander slowly, sweetly, to the inn she grew up in, and all the stories she loved to listen to. 

(A lie. There she grew up none, and then all at once on an island she never wanted to see again). 

“And then there was nothing left of him! Nothing but a stain on the deck we told the dockhands was from hauling up a tuna!”

“Oh my!” 

“Dreadful,” he said with a smile that didn’t suit the gory story. “But _not_ as dreadful as the time we ran across an island, where we saw things the likes of Marco Polo would check under his bed for.” He raised an oyster shell to his lips, slurped it down audibly. Clearly no officer of the royal navy. She didn’t notice she was staring until Silver’s eyes met hers, glinting with wicked mirth. He licked his lips. 

“You are _full_ of tall tales!” Jim declared abruptly, cheeks warm with how ludicrous Silver dared to get. “You mustn’t believe a word of it, Squire!” _You really mustn’t._

“Darlin’, I thought you loved my tall tales,”

“But I can tell when you’re making things up, and the poor squire cannot.”

“Well I don’t mind, Jim--your man should really be writing these down, make a fortune in copies of his memoir,” 

“Yes, husband dearest, you _should_ write _books_.” Her eyes all mirth, “How wonderful an idea!”

“ _Perhaps._ ” Silver groused, conscious as ever of his poor writing and reading skills. He became sheepish about the strangest, most childish of things. Defensive to the last. Jim had often baited him into it, just to watch him scowl so sweetly. 

"A new classic on seafaring! It would outsell _A History of Pyrates_!" Trelawney applauded.

"Any seafarer isn't going to believe half of the nonsense S-...John tells…" Jim took a gulp of coffee, hoping it would give her enough common sense to traverse conversation while keeping up the game.

"But think of the children!" Trelawney said, his dramatics so similar to Silver's at times that it was disturbing.

"I don't think most of my life would make for nursery stories…" Silver met Jim's eyes again.

"I meant _your_ children, of course!"

Three things happened all at once: Jim dropped her cup of coffee over the table, Silver choked on his eighth oyster, and a maid -- not Sue -- sprinted into the room, as if she was being chased by something dreadful.

"Apologies for my intrusion but Mrs. Crossley has arrived and refused to wait in the parlor."

"I haven’t a promise things are still fresh--Admiral I'd stop with the shellfish if I were you--but she's welcome to--" 

“Children?!” Silver managed to say between coughs, with a pointed look to Jim.

“Of course! I’m sure you’ll have your own little crew one day!” The squire said, as Jim just opened and closed her mouth a couple times trying to figure out a refute. 

Luckily enough for her, an impossibly old woman for how fast she was moving rushed into the room, massive baskets of various treats and wrapped parcels under each arm.

"Why, Squire James Trelawney! What are you doing eating breakfast this late?! Jemima! Don’t you look...smart in that suit! Wouldn’t a dress be better for the holidays? Or, heavens, any day? Is this your husband?!”

Silver, so used to coming up with plans and rewrites of plans off the cuff, was staring at Jim for answers as the old woman practically bounced with excitement.

“Mrs. Crossley--I didn’t think anyone else would be--I…” Grandma’s friend never met Silver. She wouldn’t know any better, and while this meant she would absolutely have to kill Gold off in a letter (and soon), the damage was already done here. “John, this is my grandmother’s friend Mrs. Crossley; Mrs. Crossley, this is Admiral Gold, my husband.”

“What a fine man you’ve reeled in for yourself, Jim! I’m impressed; I thought you’d end up with some old seadog or that wild boy that you came home with from your first adventure.”

Jim shot a look at Silver, who mouthed the words “ _Wild boy?”_ She shook her head at him. The topic of Ben Gunn had yet to come up between them, and so help her, it would never.

“I--I met _John_...When I was--”

“Well never mind that just yet, I have presents for the happy couple!”

“Oh, Mrs. Crossley you really didn’t--”

“Nonsense, I’m not about to let Florence’s granddaughter get married without my opinion _and_ without gifts. Now I know we should wait until everyone else arrives, but I’ve waited too long already and I want to see your faces when you open it!”

“Everyone else?!” Jim’s eyes darted between Silver and the squire. “ _Everyone else?”_

“So sad about the weather, the wild boy and his university friend already sent their regrets. But nothing ever keeps Dr. Livesey at home, and she’ll likely bring that Londoner of hers--the two are inseparable you know--and of course there’s--Squire Trelawney? Are your niece and her family coming?”

“No, no, my sister will be spending the holiday with Lucille and her husband’s family this year I’m afraid.”

“What a shame, I know Jim loved that girl so! Close as sisters weren’t you, dear?” 

Jim cleared her throat loudly, cheeks hot. Silver quirked a brow at her, still chewing like a mule. The embarrassment of past trysts, ones she doesn’t know how to explain to Silver. Dr. Livesey, who never stayed home, who would be sure to see Jim while she was on land. It was all getting a bit much. 

“Admiral, do you _mind_?” She reached over and pushed the plate of oysters away from him. “You’re going to get food poisoning.”

“‘S fine, darlin’, yes, you’re right. After all, I did already eat earlier…” 

Below the table, Jim stuck her fork in his (real) thigh.

“But we will have a full house of friends and locals nonetheless, a few delightful people I know from Bristol--and the musicians too, of course. Can’t have a party without some dancing.” The squire exclaimed. 

“I’ll be, ah, sitting out the dancin’, if you don’t mind much.” Jim _almost_ pitied him.

“Oh I’m so sorry, Admiral, you see, I had already forgotten!” 

“What’s he on about now?” Mrs. Crossley asked, around bites of scone she helped herself to without taking a seat. 

“My _husband_ , he--lost a leg in a sea fight--”

“Jim, I thought he said it was to a giant shark,”

“A _fight_ at _sea_ with a giant shark,” Jim amended, quickly and poorly. 

“Awful,” Mrs. Crossley said, shaking her head. Squire looked again as if he could possibly, maybe, be thinking.

“You know something quite funny?”

“I don’t know anything funny!” Jim said, shoving a bit of scone into her mouth to keep herself from talking again. 

“That awful devil of a sailor on that terrible voyage we were on--he was missing a leg too.”

“Was he?” Silver asked, interested and leaning forward, “I didn’t know that. Hard to imagine that a man with but one leg would be so _capable_ of the things in the stories Jim’s told. Must have been _quite_ a man.”

Jim rolled her eyes. She should have accepted the squire’s offer of separate rooms. 

“Well. He was--”

“ _Squire_ , I think Admiral Gold and I should go for a walk before everyone else gets here--we’re so used to the hard work on a ship that all this--sitting around will soon drive us mad!” She forced a short laugh.

-

“ _What_ is this thing supposed to be?” Silver leaned against a statue in the far reaches of the winter-dry garden of the squire’s.

“We have to leave.”

“I think it might be a centaur but like--a goat?” He turned around to see her, to be sure he heard her; the satyr's arm broke under his weight, almost sending him to the ground.

“What? Sue recognized you, and now Mrs. Crossley--she’s always been such an awful gossip and now everyone in town will think I’m married--”

“Trying to keep your options open on the home front?”

“Silver.”

“You know I’m a jealous man.” He kicked the satyr’s arm under an evergreen hedge, looking over his shoulder as he did it.

“For God’s sake, can you just _listen to me._ There’s going to be people and a _lot_ of them--more people who _know_ you or-or could recognize you or guess or…”

“Well we can’t exactly waltz out of here without a reason, can we? Is that the way of these, erm, society people?”

“We could say I took ill--I _feel_ ill, by the way.”

“We can’t have _you_ feeling poorly, they’ll just insist you stay--”

“Then we get word that someone needs us on the ship.”

“--But if I have an excuse not to leave our room, least no one _sees_ me.”

“How would you ever survive without the attention?”

“I’ll still have your attention.”

“This is _serious_. Bad enough with Sue, but--”

“Jim, this statue looks better with the one arm, doesn’t it?”

“I won't watch you die again. I _can't._ ” She stopped, arms folded tight across her chest as she watched him toy with the other arm of the statue, as if considering making his own de Milo out of it. He paused, only for a second, and didn’t turn to face her.

“And Sue! She--she looked at me like--” As if she condoned or participated in Silver’s crimes. It wasn’t Sue’s business that Jim spent endless hours of the past years trying to reconcile the blood on his hands with just how nice it felt to be held by them. “She’s right. I’m nothing good, not anymore. I don’t want to see you arrested and arranged for hanging, but I don’t want to know what I would do to stop it. What I could do.” 

“If it makes you feel any better, I don’t think you could make a difference. Don’t go getting yourself killed for treason on my account.”

Jim sat on the icy stone bench, a nymph beside her, apparently laughing at the now armless satyr on the other side. 

“Please just stay upstairs once people arrive. I don’t--They won’t even give me anything to bury. They’ll hang you in chains on the docks. ‘S what they did to my grandfather.” 

“It’s a _party_ , Jim. Everyone there--but the mute--assumes I’m dead, or doesn’t know what I look like. Besides, you’re the one who thought it would work.”

“I did _not_. I said ‘This will never work,’ and you said ‘Okay, but it _could_ be very funny.’ Willing to risk your neck for a show and a laugh." She watched a few gulls cross overhead, flying towards the ocean. "You say treason, but you know that if you’re captured--I’m like as not to be arrested too. Harboring a fugitive.” She hadn’t spent much time considering that there was more risk to his company than a knife in the back. 

“There it is.”

“What?”

“Your paranoia. Your worries. Your ‘zero to twenty-five knots’ way of thinking, girl. ‘S not healthy, or reasonable. Someone finds out I’m here, _if_ , and _if_ they do, and _if_ they hang me, what will they do to you, eh? Pity you more likely. Poor thing got herself charmed silly by an old con.”

“What fantasy are you living in? Charmed silly?”

“Darlin,’ I don’t think you’d have remembered your middle name if I asked you last night. And you’re forgettin’...another detail.”

“What?”

“Your Squire Stupid likes me too much to see me hang.” She opened her mouth to protest angrily but he cut her off, “And that--you know I’m not _fond_ of the idea of idly watching you get hauled off to a damp cell on my account.”

It is about the closest she’d heard to a sober ‘I love you,’.

“Please stay in the room tonight.”

“You’re really scared, aren’t you?”

“I’m used to it by now. Having someone warm in my bed. I don’t want to have to find another.” If there was going to be no outpouring of frank emotion from him, then there would be none from her, never mind his smug expectations. 

“I know your ship’s doctor would jump in before my side of the bunk was cold.”

“Fine. Have it your way. I’ll leave you to the wolves,” She said standing up, annoyed, frozen for how cold it was, “I’ll head back. Maybe ask the kind doctor if he wants to take your spot.”

“Jim.”

She was already several paces away from him, hands thrown up at first in aggravation, fingers shifting into a clear gesture thrown in his direction. 

“ _Cabin girl_.”

Damn him, damn him to the lowest most miserable, frozen depths of hell. She stopped.

“Alright, luv, fine, fine. I don’t have my land legs back yet. I don’t sleep well off the sea, or stand to weather this _bloody cold_ \-- I hate this country, by the way, we ever retire, we retire to Louisiana or to Madagascar. Open an inn or a bar or something where it’s warm.”

“Focus, Silver.”

“Oh, right--so I’m under the weather. I go back to bed. Hide out until everyone stumbles away home, drunk and tired. I’ll stay a-hiding in my hole. Will that satisfy you?” He sounded frustrated. Perhaps she was panicking too much. She turned around and stood at his side, linking her arm through his.

“It wouldn’t do for besotted Mrs. Gold to not walk her poor old husband back inside through this bitter chill.”

Silver reached around with his other hand and set it over hers, playing with his beaten old ring on her left middle finger--just a costume piece, of course, it fit his smallest finger and barely stayed on her, but she owned no rings of her own. The action made Jim’s heart skip a beat with the forlorn concern that he might actually want her to keep wearing it.

“Jim, darlin’?”

“...What?”

“...Don’t elaborate on the story, and have the squire talk to me _directly_ if questioned. Devil knows you can’t lie very well…”

-

_It might work,_ she thought. A servant that Jim didn’t recognize was told that the admiral wanted to have a bit of a lie down and to not disturb them for a short while, keep clear of the hall so he could have some quiet.

“I like the sound of that,” Silver said with a grin, shrugging his coat onto the floor and falling backwards onto the bed.

“We have to come up with a plan for getting out of here tomorrow.”

“Oh,” he pulled a face. “I thought, when you wanted that mouse to avoid the hall, that you meant to be a-makin' more incriminating sounds than--”

“The mere sound of your footsteps in this house incriminates me plenty, thank you.” She _knew_ that _he_ knew she was full of it. She wouldn’t last a week before dragging him back to her cabin and shoving him against her desk or-- yes, hopeless. She wanted him so badly. It made her feel doomed. “You’ll be staying here through the party. And I’ll leave it as early as I can, I suppose. Tomorrow morning we wake before dawn when everyone’s still hungover, and make for Bristol. Have a few days there to ourselves before the crew comes staggering back and we set off in the New Year.” 

Neither of them got much sleep that night, in spite of - or perhaps in part due to - the Squire’s thick heavy curtains and the dark winters night. There was a small hearth in the room behind a bronze grate that kept it hot like a galley. They didn’t speak, although neither truly slept. Silver tossed and turned, next to her, grumbling nonsense and rubbing at his phantom leg. Jim suspected he was genuinely landsick, disturbed by the lack of movement, the decisive stillness. Even Jim was disquieted by the absence of gentle rocking, and her bed fellow had spent more of his life on ships than not. 

It wasn’t the solid ground beneath her feet that kept Jim awake, of course. She thought of tomorrow, and then of the past. Then tomorrow again, for the past was too difficult, and Sue’s fear was too fresh in her mind. She thought about when she was a little girl, running out to the craggy cliffs, watching the fishing boats. She thought about her parents taken by fever on a night as cold as this one was sure to be, outside of the stifling coziness of Squire’s best guest room. 

A knock at the door. Jim raised her head from the pillow, neck aching. The bed was too soft. It was hurting her body, this level of comfort. 

“Who is it?” She croaked, slipping out of bed, used to rising quickly. The floor was cold, and the fire had died. It was morning now. She wrapped herself in a quilt that had sat folded at the end of the bed, and opened the door.

“Have I woken you!” Mrs. Crossley was dressed, dressed well, her face pursed with disapproval. Her long white hair was swept up and back. 

“I’m sorry.” Jim murmured weakly, not wanting to wake Silver. Not out of courtesy to

him, no, just to avoid a scene. “We’re still adjusting to having our feet on land. Are you going out?” 

“It’s _Sunday,_ and Christmas Eve. Where do you _think_ I’m going, Jemima?” Mrs. Crossley

tsked. 

For a long, bleary eyed moment, Jim honestly couldn’t have told her. 

Then, she grimaced, embarrassed, nodding.  
“Right, yes, of course. Yes, we’d like to come, but-- my husband, he’s not, not feeling his

best, I wouldn’t like to leave him just yet--” Jim blathered. 

Mrs. Crossley softened, if only a touch. 

“Yes, I heard that the Admiral was feeling poorly. Missing the sea air? Well, sailors

always were godless lots. Squire Trelawney and I will be at church. If we make the morning service I’ll be able to drink myself silly at the party this eve, and forget the Midnight Mass altogether. I’ll pray for you. Now, here.” 

She handed Jim a box, tied with twine in a pretty bow. It was heavy.

“Squire promised we weren’t doing gifts!” Jim whispered weakly. Mrs. Crossley smiled 

smugly and clasped her hands in front of her chest.

“Open it now, quickly.”

“What time is it?”

“Almost six, if the grandfather in the hallway is to be believed. I thought your ilk rose at the crack of dawn?”

“We _are_ on holiday.” Jim pulled the string, untying the box. She lifted the lid only a fraction, peeking inside. 

“I’m sure the Admiral will love to see you in this.” Mrs. Crossley’s voice took on a wet and misty quality, like she might have been dreaming of having her own admiral. She cleared her throat. “I made it myself. I made all my daughters' ones as well. I thought blue would be best for you, and I used yellow and pink ribbons for the trim of the girls. I was glad to see you’re still a slip of a thing, since I had to guess at your measurements.” 

“This is so generous of you,” Jim murmured, and she meant it. This old woman, this friend of her late grandmother’s, had thought of her, and expended time and energy and perhaps even love into this garment that Jim was loath to wear. She leaned forward and kissed the old woman on the cheek. 

She left the dress in its box on the foot of the bed, and snuck down to eat breakfast while the others were at Mass. Silver snored, finally having tricked himself into believing he was only in calm waters. By the time she slipped back into the bedroom, he was still sleeping, curled up on his side in a tight ball, like a child. He often slept like that. Jim could hear that the squire and Mrs. Crossley had returned and were busying themselves about downstairs, possibly already with company in tow. It was near midday now, and she opened the brocaded curtains. Silver twisted his face into the pillow, and did not open his eyes. 

Jim slipped behind the screen, the heavy dress bundled in her arms like a crumpled tack sail. She held it up in front of her, inspected it like she was looking at an invisible woman, one who would fit into this dress like stuffing for a turkey and swan happily downstairs on her husband's arm. She raised her eyebrows at the phantom, and wondered if the woman thought as little of Jim as Jim did of her.

She didn’t own stays, and while she was no expert, it seemed the dress was designed to be worn with one. Regardless, it buttoned up, and the hem fell only just past her ankles in bare feet. On instinct, acting on some idea of what pretty girls looked like, she tugged out her braid. Her hair was knotted. She worried at the knots with her fingers. 

There was no mirror behind the screen, so she stepped out to examine herself in the one affixed to the credenza. She did not feel transformed. She did not feel an ugly duckling, either. She just felt a bit silly, like a child playing dress up in mother’s clothes. She didn’t have rouge or any colour for her lips, which is what women usually wore in a handsome dress like this one. She scrubbed at her face with her own hands.

“What in hell's name have you done to yourself?” Jim glanced over her shoulder. Silver was sitting up in bed behind her, propped up on the indulgent mountain of pillows. He looked disgusted. Jim tried to stop herself from smiling. 

“A gift, from Mrs. Crossley.” 

“You’re not really going to _wear_ it, are you?”

“It’s only a dress, Long John.”

Silver scoffed, looked her up and down again; scratched at his three-day beard. 

“You look ridiculous.” 

The smile won out, and she grinned at him.

“And you know lots about the latest fashions?”

“I know plenty about _you,_ Captain.”

Jim came over to the bed, warm in the face, and quickly reached out, touching his hair briefly and fondly before sitting on the edge of the bed with her back to him.

“Help me out of it, then. I’d rather remind them I’m a no-good sea captain with no sense of propriety.” 

“Now. That’s my girl,” Silver unbuttoned and unlaced her. Jim let the dress fall around her hips. 

“Mrs. Crossley made it herself. That’s real kindness, I think.” She folded it up neatly for its box. 

The clothes she had packed for the occasion were clean pressed and plain and comfortable. They were her best slacks, and a white shirt that hadn’t yellowed or faded yet from the sun or sweat. Clumsily, she tried to scrape her curls back into shape with a brush. She could hear the familiar sound of leather against buckles as Silver strapped on his leg.

“Here, there’s no taming it.”

Behind her, Silver stood, taking up her hair in his hands. Jim let her own hands fall to her side, and then fell quiet herself. She closed her eyes. Silver plaited her hair, quick and practical and kind. Almost paternal. There was nothing to be said about it. 

She fidgeted with the ring on her left hand again; still worried he’ll tell her to keep wearing it, or worse: _ask_ her to keep wearing it. It wasn’t in her nature; it wasn’t in _their_ nature. 

“Hat or no?”

“You’ll lose it after your second brandy.”

“You’re thinking of yourself. Did you ever find that jacket you lost on board last New Year?”

“Do you really have to keep reminding me of that?”

“Yes,” she grinned back at him. He was missing something in the face beyond the beard, the longer hair and braids that used to frame him. “Do you have your tin of kohl with you?”

“‘S in the trunk somewhere. Figured it’d be better if I didn’t wear it.”

Jim dug through their things, spare stockings and her hat, a fleece blanket, her worn copy of The Odyssey, and Silver’s whalebone comb. She found the old tobacco tin of kohl, approached the mirror with smug determination, and lined her eyes in it. 

“I’ll try to escape the party sooner than later. The less chance of me having to answer questions.”

He caught her arm on her way out the door, twisting it almost painfully until she was forced to turn to him again.

“What are you--” he cut her off with a harsh, hard kiss on the mouth, squeezing her arm and tugging her in tight to him, with his other arm around her waist. Jim gasped against his lips, and he took the parting as invitation deeper, only releasing her when she let out a squeak of shock, and even then, clutching her tightly against himself, his fingers digging into the skin of her arm almost painfully. There was that warmth in her gut again. That obstinate little flame that begged for him, even like this.

“In case you get it in that head of yours to go a-trying any of the younger men.” His voice, rough as sand, rough as his stubble against her ear and throat, “Or prettier ladies.”

\- 

Jim was glad of her smartly pressed pants and blouse as she descended the stairs. Without them, she might have felt a little less brave. Squire was already entertaining company. She could hear them in the drawing room, and felt sheepish for how long she had dawdled for Silver's assurances, his promises that he really would stay hidden, his mutters that she looked the part of a dashing sea captain, no doubt of that, luv. She rolled her shoulders back and smiled preemptively, to nobody at all, as she stepped onto the landing.

The crowd comprised of a sea of faces she half-remembered, or half thought she remembered. The other half was utterly unknown to her. Strangers didn’t bother her. The port of Cairo, a hundred languages filling the air, the heady mixture of spices in the south islands, the lush, humid ports of pirates and sailors in the New World, and not one had she ever seen twice. Home was on the ship, on the move, but freedom tasted like another country’s foods and wine.

The guests she recognized were the ones she worried about. 

Mrs. Crossley standing near to the center of a coterie made up of finely dressed women. Two of them were wearing similar gowns to the one sitting in its box upstairs. The old woman looked at her with a mixture of confusion and annoyance. 

Jim Hawkins, the prodigal daughter of Black Cove, returned with money and a husband as she damn well should have years ago, and she had the nerve to walk into the party in men’s clothing, alone. 

It wasn’t as if anyone ever _cared_ about her--if they did, she wouldn’t have memories of all the times she went to be hungry, stoking small piles of miserable coals to try and keep the inn warm. While she couldn’t imagine her grandmother accepting charity, she was fairly certain that no one ever offered. Her grandmother wore poverty with grace and decorum, but Jim always wondered how the likes of the squire and Dr. Livesey could have failed to notice that her trousers were too long, shirts too short, and she was wearing two pairs of knit stockings instead of the shoes she had outgrown that winter they had found the treasure map. 

Livesey, she remembered, Livesey would be here tonight. An automatic smile almost formed on her face; Jim had always looked up to the woman for her strength of will in the face of those who would insist she do something else with her life. Livesey was bold and clever with a droll sense of humor and no patience for fools or nonsense. Jim aspired to be her. So long as her mock husband stayed far away from the first floor of the manor, she might even be able to have a proper conversation with the good doctor, as she hasn’t had the chance to in years, easily.

Movement caught her eye. Mrs. Crossley ducked across to another group--men, all older, each with a brandy glass and the same smug expression on their faces that said _money,_ and pulled on the squire’s coat sleeve. She was saying something to him, but Jim couldn’t hear across the din of partygoers and the musicians. 

_“THERE’S MY YOUNG FRIEND!”_ He shouted, waving at her with both hands. Jim held back on the urge to run immediately back to their rooms, and pull the duvet over herself, and hide until morning as if she was the one in danger of arrest and trial. Nearly every eye in the ballroom was on her then, trying to figure out what she was. Strange person with a girl’s face and men’s clothes.

“You didn’t have to disrupt your party for my sake,”

“Oh nonsense! If you and the admiral weren’t so stubborn I would be throwing a party twice this size to celebrate your nuptials--no matter how long ago they were. The offer is open, you know, if you would ever like a proper wedding celebration, I will take care of every last detail!”

“You’re too kind, really, squire, but--”

“Speaking of, where is the man of the hour?”

“John, yes, well - he felt. Sick. Landsick. It happens to sailors; he can’t sleep for being off the sea, and didn’t feel quite up to the crowds and dancing.” The sheer number of people staring at her like a circus animal made her ramble: “He’s an awful dancer anyway, stepping on my feet despite how good he is with his footwork when using a sword but--”

“A _sword,_ Jim you talk like you’re in the habit of being pulled into sea battles!”

“I--Well. No, but I’ve seen him with a sword and--”

“My word! Well, he’ll have to tell us all about it over drinks later. He tells such excellent stories.”

“...better stories than I can tell,” Jim said, partially to remind herself not to get stuck on any of the lies. “But he’s not feeling well, truly, I doubt he’ll be down here at all tonight. Or even at breakfast tomorrow!”

“It was probably all those oysters. I blame myself.” The squire lamented, patting Jim firmly on the shoulder. “It’s such a dear shame that you’re alone tonight. No matter! We’ll find you plenty of company and single dancers for your entertainment.”

“It’s really not necessary, I wasn’t going to stay long, I really should--” She was veering towards another ramble when a server came by with a tray of drinks. “Oh-- _thank you,_ ” she said, never meaning it more in the past week than just now, and taking one snifter of cognac, and then a second. She tried to join the loose circle of men, to hear what was being discussed because surely it was better than getting dragged to their wives and interrogated about her husband. 

“Well, gentlemen, what’s at hand tonight?”

A hydra of old men managed to glare _down_ at her, the same expression on each head though they moved almost independently of each other, one disinterested and clad in grey, and two were shorter than she was. She shot a scowl to the center head, and nodded to the squire beside her before slipping off to the side, trying to find another group she could revolve around until it was respectably late enough to go to bed.

Mrs. Crossley roughly shouldered her way through the crowd, gaping at Jim now that she saw her up close.

“You’re not wearing your dress,”

"Oh. Yes. Mrs. Crossley. I - _I_ want to save it for a finer evening than this," Jim had a cognac in one hand and a pipe in the other, and sweat beading on her brow.

“Sensible. I understand. These country manor parities are pure frivolities. Save it for the season in Bath.” The old woman winked, and Jim did not know what to make of it. 

Abruptly, Mrs. Crossley had a gaggle of wives behind her, and a couple of men, probably husbands. 

“So you’re the one married to a sea-captain?”

No, admiral, retired; I’m the captain. 

“How’d _that_ come about?”

Ever since I discovered my love of the sea and ships.

“Why’d the admiral retire?”

War injury. No, wait, that’s not what Silver had said. Damn him for being right. She can’t keep a lie straight. 

“Who owns the boat?”

A ship. My ship, my schooner. 

“Yes, but who paid for it?”

It was a total, absolute sort of shame that descended over her, as the squire elbowed in and merrily explained how the ship, her _Polaris,_ was a gift from him to his God-daughter -- “Of a sorts!” The way their faces relaxed, softened with understanding and bemusement. She was a puzzle to them, unusual and outside, but now, they understood. She has a rich benefactor. She is still just a girl. Fundamentally, she couldn’t do this on her own. Mrs. Crossley tittered at the notion of romance on the high seas, and the man in the grey overcoat droned something about women being bad luck on a ship. It was as Silver always insinuated. She didn’t earn this. She was a cabin girl playing at being captain. She downed her cognac and reached out for another. 

It was not just the ship, and how she came to get it. It was Silver too, a man with every ability to take the vessel from her. A proper sort of captain, who swabs would cower from and fall in line for. Respect, rather than treat as a novelty. And it was her. It was the way she fell into old routines. Deferential to her ship's _cook_. The cognac snifter was drained empty. 

“Jim. Jim Hawkins.” 

It was a lilting, sharp voice. Jim turned around, heart in her throat. 

“Doctor Livesey.” 

They talked for hours. They didn’t talk of the pretend husband, or about Grandma. Jim told Dr. Livesey about the work, about the places she’d seen. About her crew (sans one) and Livesey’s new practice. 

“To be frank, Jim.” The doctor inhaled from Jim’s pipe, and sighed, leaning back in the armchair. “I’m considering leaving Black Cove.” 

“Leaving!” Jim couldn’t picture this place without her. 

“I hope you appreciate the irony of how disapproving _you_ sound about that notion.” Livesey quipped. 

“But why?”

“Because this is a very small town. One I’ve earned respect in, and trust, yes. But one cannot stay at home forever.” Livesey chuckled wryly. “You understand that.” 

There seemed to be more to the story, but it was hidden from her, under sensible pinned curls and a well fitted vest and slacks. Livesey was the only other woman at the party who was not wearing a dress. Livesey was her hero. 

Of course, some topics cannot be entirely avoided, not forever.

“You’ve managed to do what many have urged me to do since I was only your age.” Livesey nodded to the costume jewellery on Jim’s ring finger. “Trelawney told me he’s taken ill. I assumed a naval officer to be made of stronger stuff.”

Jim smiled, certain her guilt was written all across her pallid face. 

“Doctor, you yourself have told me that stoicism has nothing to do with a man’s health.”

From above them, there was a heavy, metal thud. Livesey looked up. Quite a few guests looked up. Immediately, there was the sound of muffled cursing, and distinct footfall. Jim dug her blunt fingernails into the meat of her palm, and thought about confessing. Maybe they’d only put Silver in a jail cell, and not hang him. 

Quiet conversation slowly started up again. Livesey was sitting up straighter. 

“Where in London would you open your practice? Have you visited much already?”

“It sounds as if your _admiral_ has awoken, doesn’t it?”

“Might have been a clumsy servant.” She sounded feeble even to her own ears. 

“Ooh, is the Admiral coming down? I’d like another look at the fellow.” Mrs. Crossley appeared beside Livesey, glancing down at the doctor in her armchair. “Goodness, don’t you two look alike.” 

“We’ve got nothing in common aside from our style of dress, Mrs. Crossley.” Livesey sniffed. “I could say you look just like your daughters, and your daughters look just like every other woman at these festivities. You like the fellow, then?”

Mrs. Crossley was unoffended, jovial, on her fifth brandy. 

“Oh, _yes,_ and I’d dare say he’s more suited for a woman of my age than young Jemima’s.” She cackled, patting Jim’s shoulder fondly. “A jest, my dear, just a jest.”

Livesey cleared her throat. 

“He’s an older man, then?”  
“Not very much. Mostly usual. Ten years or so.” Jim babbled.

“Or so? You don’t know Admiral Gold’s age?

“Of course I _know._ ” Nobody knew Silver's exact age, least of all Silver. 

“No, no, it’s not so unusual.” Mrs. Crossley tittered. 

The concern on Livesey’s face was clear, and the worst part was she was clearly trying to suppress it. 

“It’s not drink that has him bedridden, is it?” The terse disapproval was equally plain in her voice.

Mrs. Crossley mumbled something about how she was indisposed to drink soon herself, and wandered back to her gathering across the room.

“Something he ate. Being back on land.” _Pick one, Hawkins._

“I could go in and check on him, if you would--”

“NO! No-- _No,_ that’s--unnecessary, thank you doctor. He’s just being--well he’s. He doesn’t like being the center of attention or-- _dancing!_ ” Her eyes were twice their usual size as she stumbled into a new excuse. “He told all sorts of tales, but I suspect he has some _silly_ thought in his head that I’ll have more fun here without him.”

“Whyever would he think that? Certainly he’s not _that_ boring.”

“He isn’t boring! And he isn’t _old_. He’s…” Livesey watched her with intense scrutiny. For a woman without a maternal bone in her body, the doctor had an uncanny way of squeezing out truths and details from gifted liars, as Jim had witnessed. For someone who was as open of a book as she was, it was pointless. “I do care for him, doctor. Very much.”

“I don’t doubt that, you always--” She looked to the musicians, her words waiting. “You were never one to do anything half-heartedly. I trust that you wouldn’t have married someone if you weren’t in love,” And _that_ makes Jim look over to the quartet as well. _Love_. What a word. She never deluded herself into thinking Silver loved her--besides the fact that he was likely incapable of it, she figured too that she wasn’t exactly an easy woman to love. The doctor continued: “I do not profess to understand or agree with your match, just as I never fully understood why anyone would desire a man in their life, but--I trust you, and I trust your judgement.”

There wasn’t a line of truth she could reply with, but the answer thrummed inside her, and she gave it a voice.

“He’s my best friend, doctor.”

“I really would like to meet him.” Livesey smiled. “I wish you could convince him to come down, even if just for a few minutes. Surely he’s not so ill that he can’t?”

“It’s not--The squire said there would be _dancing_ and he can’t do it very well on his leg. I don’t want him to feel bad or-or suggest I dance with someone else. I hate dancing too, but he never believes me and--” Jim paused to watch as Livesey blinked slowly. Time slowed down. The noise of the party was a thousand leagues away. “What?”

“What’s wrong with his leg, Jim?”

“He--he fought in the war, and there--it’s an ugly story, but he lost a good bit of it.”

“How?”

“At sea--well, on a coast. An island. To a shark. Yes, a big, _massive_ even monster of a shark that smelled blood from battle and--”

“Jim.”

“What? What! Lots of men lost a leg or worse in the service of the king.”

Livesey seemed to be trying to find the right words. Before she could, Silent Sue pushed into their corner of the sitting room. She was dressed no finer than yesterday, still only a housekeeper, and despite the stakes, Jim felt sadness for Silent Sue. For what she was doing to the woman by bringing Long John Silver into her midst, yes, she regretted that. But in this moment, she felt sadness that Sue was here as a servant and not a friend. The squire was kind-hearted to his help, but not one to elevate them. 

Sue reached out and grabbed at Livesey’s well tailored sleeve. The doctor's eyes twinkled with instant recognition, and she took Sue’s hand for her wrist and shook instead, in a firm grasp. 

“Silent Sue. It is good to see you.” She assured the woman warmly, mistaking the urgency in Sue’s eyes for a desperation to be seen, to be remembered. 

A heavy clunk of something upstairs, like a lid shutting. Not as disturbing as the crash before, and the party continued, but Livesey’s ears were pricked. Sue nodded, and pointed up the bannister. She didn’t spare a glance at Jim.

“Is something the matter, Sue?” Livesey asked, standing as well, setting down her glass.  
“Upstairs?”

Sue nodded, and reached for Livesey again, pulling her with her towards the stairs. 

“Nothing’s going on! It’s nothing at all, I don’t know why everyone is so interested in my life all of a sudden! How about we go play cards?” Rather than convince the doctor that everything was as normal with her as it could get, her outburst summoned the eyes of every gossip-hungry vulture in the room.

“Is there something...that you would like to tell us?” Calculations were turning in Livesey’s head, Jim could see it, but like the equations that always vexed her, she was missing certain variables: _she thought Silver was dead._

“.....Not unless everyone gets very calm about a lot of things very quickly.” 

A loud _thunk!_ upstairs followed by muffled, thickly accented cursing. 

“I’m going up.” She had already ascended the first few stairs. 

The musicians, unaware of anything other than their sheets, struck up a louder, livelier tune and several guests shouted in excitement to rush towards the area of the hall that had been designated for dancing.

“Doctor Livesey.” Jim pleaded. Eyes threatening to water, heart cracking, the heavy wooden doors opening and shutting upstairs echoing in her head like the trap door of a scaffold. Would they let him keep his false leg, or make him climb the stairs up with his crutch? She’d pulled his long hair out from under ties and scarves before in small moments of redressing in the morning, but would an executioner bother, or make his noose as vexing as possible? “Doctor Livesey. _Please_.”

“Jim, I demand to know what is going on.” She was halfway up the stairs now. Jim stood only one step below her. 

“He’ll be at breakfast tomorrow, I--we don’t want attention, please. Everyone here--I don’t want him to see how people treat me. I don’t want him to--to get upset or worry, or get into some argument on my behalf…” That lie only worked because it was true. If Silver were to hear how some men had questioned her tonight about her post as captain, he’d be furious. He resented the supposed ease with which she had come about her own ship, but he wouldn’t ever hear a word against her from any underling. 

Livesey was at the top of the staircase. The landing was blessedly quiet. Sue surged up to join her, looking down the hall, clearly praying that Silver would appear. 

“I could simply take his temperature. He needn’t come down to join the rabble.” But Livesey’s voice had already softened.

“Please, let’s go downstairs. He needn’t be bothered. He will be abashed of his state of, his state of heady unwellness.” 

“...Tomorrow. I would like to have a _talk_ with this man who managed to convince a girl like you into marriage.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” She was insulted, but Sue tugged at Livesey’s sleeve again and Jim felt like she was going to retch. “Sue--the _admiral_ will be here in the morning. There’s no rush for anything. I’m sure he’s just been stumbling about for a constitutional.” 

Sue scowled at her, that look of deep betrayal twisting her features. She had flowers woven into her hair for the evening, and a fresh rose from the hothouse pinned to the front of her plain dress. Jim knew that with her (small) share of the treasure, she had started her own brilliant indoor garden, and Jim realised at that moment that the incredible arrangements of red flowers and dark green foliage, of holly and mistletoe, were all thanks to her artistry. 

On the _Hispaniola,_ all those years ago, Sue had seen Jim wearing Silver’s coat in the galley. Everyone had, but no one ever pointed it out to her. The squire likely didn’t notice, but Livesey had always looked at her with a strange sense of worry. Sue had pinched the sleeve just the once with a question, a sad, forlorn look on her face. Perhaps asking what Livesey was afraid to ask: exactly what was there between her and the pirate? What had he done to her? Jim had shaken her head back then at the older girl and bitterly told her that she had earned the coat. Besides. She hadn’t owned a coat of her own. 

Now it was as if Sue was questioning just how involved Jim had been in the pain and horror of the island. 

A woman in a blouse and skirt, with a men’s vest tailored to fit her curves, appeared at the bottom of the stairwell. Jim watched the doctor shift into such a relaxed posture that she felt like she was intruding. With a smile, Livesey descended to greet her. Logically, she understood why Livesey wouldn’t share all the details of her life with her, but nevertheless she was _nettled_ that the doctor would demand full knowledge of her life without divulging an ounce of her own. At least the latecomer distracted her enough that Jim was able to slip away from both her and Sue.

That warmth between the doctor and her guest--a friend of Livesey’s from London, so Mrs. Crossley divulged. Jim watched it. Jim hoped Silver hadn’t climbed out a window. Jim wanted to be back in her bunk on the _Polaris,_ the ship’s cook in her arms, and the knowledge there was an hour left before the first bell. 

Jim didn’t wait for the party to slow before leaving. To the contrary, she hovered in corners, occasionally attempting to drink and smoke with the men, until the crowd seemed drunk and joyous enough not to notice a plain wallflower--no, there were other wallflowers, gorgeous young women, shy and wilting--a plain wall-weed like her. Leaving the noise was a relief. Seeing Silver reclined on the bed in nothing but his breeches, arms folded under his head, as if he had been asleep and behaved the entire time, that was a gift.

“Party no fun without me?”

“We have to leave tonight, Silver. Tonight.”

“Thought you said we’d wait a few more hours. It’s _cold_.” He sat up, swinging his leg over the side of the bed and reaching for the wooden one. Jim started unlatching their trunk in a panic, _must pack, out the service stairway_ _, and we can leave past the stables_ … “No! Don’t bother, girl, I’ve already put everything away. Thought it would give us more time to ourselves.”

“When we’re back on the ship, if we get back...” She closed the latches again, felt for her knife in her belt, and pulled on her coat. She took out the gloves from its pockets and put them on as well. 

“Smart, I almost forgot.” Silver pulled a set of grey kid gloves from his pockets too, and Jim noted that they didn’t match his navy coat.

“Silver, I didn’t think you brought gloves.”

“‘Course I did.”

“No, because on the ride here, you kept putting your frozen hands on me to warm up, and I said you should have brought them. And _you_ said, ‘We shouldn’t have a-traipsed back t’ England in the buggered winter,’' She mimicked his accent flawlessly. “Did you steal them?”

“I borrowed ‘em, and I don’t feel guilty for it none either, whatever rich twit they came from will have some fine coach to ride home in. Nice and warm.”

“We don’t have time for this--”

“Then why are you gaping at me and interrogating me? What happened down there anyway?”

“Doctor Livesey’s here.”

“Oh _fuck_.”

“Exactly! She almost--! The only reason you aren’t already in shackles is--”

“--because of the odds of an intruder?”

“ _Silver!_ The only reason she hasn’t figured it out is because she knows you’re dead.”

“Crushed to a fine dust, I am.” 

Jim made an indignant, angry little sound.

“Don’t joke about it. It’s not funny.”

“Yes, it is.”

“It _is not_.” Her voice caught. It wasn’t fair, how he starred in all of her nightmares. It wasn’t fair that in the same night of waking from a vision of him hurting her with increasing creativity and malice, she could fall asleep again only to start awake at the sight of his dead body, destroyed in the cave-in. “It’s not funny. You’re not dead,” She sniffed hard.

“Jim, you’re not _upset_.” He looked around at her as he fixed his hair under the white wig. “You _are_? Oh hell, girl, you’re still burning that self-same candle for me you did when you were sixteen, aren’t you?” 

She wanted, terribly, to tell him _of course_. Of course, she still had the same flame for him that she always did, or else why even _bother_ with this mess, with him, with the lying and hiding and why let him into her life and her bed and back in her head where he stirred up all her thoughts of good and evil until she could only understand one thing: that this was fate itself. 

She took a deep breath, and adjusted her cravat.

“Long John Silver. You say that as if you’re not wrapped around my finger, and have been since I was just a girl…” She said, and tilted her head just so, lips so slightly parted, and eyes half shut. 

“You...might be right about that...you always were smart as paint,” SHe was so close; she felt his breath, the static pressure of the shrinking space between them--and immediately ducked away.

“ _You_ ,” he growled, still half posed for a kiss, “You _tricked_ me.” It sounded like a question; still in shock. 

“Save it, Silver.”

Still he caught her by the hair and forced her to look up at him. His hand tight against her scalp. He kissed her forehead. 

“Not an easy feat, foolin’ me. Good girl.”

-

They trudged through darkness, carrying their case between them. The road was framed by tall trees on either side, but the night was cloudless enough for Jim to put one foot in front of the other comfortably, determined not to let Silver take more of the weight than her, always hoisting the trunk up a little further on her side every few minutes. Soon, maybe in an hour, they will come out near the coast, and then the walk will be downhill, albeit more treacherous. As they walked, Silver told her about his adventure through Trelawney manor. He had started by moping about the room. He had gotten bored quickly. He had carved a bird into the inside door of the wardrobe with his knife. Taken out cards and cheated his way through two rounds of solitaire. 

By the end of that first half hour, he settled on exploring. 

“You are such a _child_.”

“You’re no Sunday stroll through the park either. You should have seen some of the tripe the man keeps in that place, ugly paintings, at least four of himself. But in this one gallery there--”

“Why even tell me this?” She was ignored.

“There I was, a-hunting for fine souvenirs, peeking from door to door, real quiet like, when I happened upon you-won’t-believe-what.” 

Over his left shoulder, Silver had strung his own canvas knapsack of belongings that Jim privately suspected he always kept separate for the inevitable moment he chose to betray her, to cut and run. He stopped in his tracks, and Jim lurched forward with the trunk for a moment, before sighing and setting it down. Silver opened up his pack and inclined it towards Jim. It was too dark to see the loot, but she heard the heavy clink of coin. Her jaw set.

“You robbed the squire?” She asked coldly.

“I did not rob nothing. I took what was rightfully mine. This ain’t his spending money. This gold was from _Flint’s fist_.” 

Jim’s heart stuttered. It had been a long time since she heard the name of that accursed treasure.

“How could you know that?”

“He’s got it in a bloody sea-chest, in a museum, no, a _mausoleum_ , more like. It weren’t just the gold, oh no. In this -- gallery room, all on display, he had chests and cases of coin and this brass elephant and this gold vase and -- wanted broadsides!” Silver snorted. “He had _my_ broadside, and Blackbeards, though I think that were a fake. I was shocked he didn’t have Captain Kidd’s skull in a box.”

“Oh, he might have.” Jim murmured weakly, wondering what Trelawney would make of the theft, hoping some poor servant wouldn’t get punished for Silver’s greed and entitlement.

“He didn’t, I checked every chest.”

Silver drew up the strings of the heavy bag of loot, slung it back over his shoulder, and took up his side of the trunk again. 

“He never even _spent_ his treasure, he’s collected it. What a rich, stupid bastard.” 

“Long John.” Jim didn’t take up her side of the trunk, not yet. “Squire is family to me. Don’t speak like that about him. I mean that. You stole from him.”

“Flint’s fist is _mine,_ Jim.” Silver said softly, coldly. “That’s _my_ treasure, and your dear squire stole it from me.”

Jim was still and quiet, her breath fogging the air. She tried to understand this man. She tried to picture the life before her, twice the lifetime she’d lived, and the world Silver lived in under Flint. She heard what Silver is saying, what he was really saying, even if he didn’t know it himself. She, Jim Hawkins, stole his treasure from him. She split the shares with Livesey and Squire, the shares of gold that Silver killed and dug and bled for twice over.

“Is there such a thing as stealing from a pirate?”  
Silver gave her a dangerous look, and Jim, doomed as she was, got a thrill of want and fear and love straight to the gut. Her hand went to the knife on her hip. Behind them, she heard the clatter of horses.

“--Let’s barter for a ride back to Bristol.” She whispered quickly, and Silver obeyed his captain. 

The sun was in the sky, now. They’d been in the wagon amongst sacks and bundles of vegetables, and Jim had the good sense to spend her own coin to convince the driver to take to vagabonds with him down to Bristol, rather than ask Silver to cough up even a sou of his newfound loot. Jim got better sleep on the rickety, wobbling cart, her head propped on a sack, than she had both nights in Trelawney’s best guest room. She sat up, looking at the blooming smoke of Bristol rising into the sky, only some miles away now. It was Christmas morning. 

Soon, they were dockside. The mast of the _Polaris_ struck up against grey clouds and Bristol smog. It shone a little with frost. She ran ahead of Silver to board her lovely ship, forgetting him in her homesick excitement. She left the old salt to lug their things aboard. 

-

“I have...a _gift_ for you, and given certain recent circumstances, I’m a hopin’ you’ll accept it…”

“Silver?”

“Close your eyes.” 

“It’s not a knife in the heart is it?” She was only half joking. Silver sounded almost soft, unbearably so, when he answered.

“I like you t’much for that…Thought you’d know that by now.”

Jim shut her eyes tight, and something was set onto her head, not too heavy to stand, but certainly weighty.

“What’s--” She opened her eyes and took it off. A brilliant silver tiara, shining almost to white in the light and encrusted with sapphires, clear gems of some kind, and pearls. “You stole this from the squire--”

“I think it will look better on you than it ever did on him.”

“I’m--”

“I’m not given’ it back to him. You can keep it, or it goes in the trunk with the rest of it.”

“....Well I can’t thank you for it.”

“‘S from the princess of Portugal. I think. Sailors spoke it, so I always assumed.”

“Twice stolen.”

Silver grinned widely, showing teeth. Absolutely evil, this man, pure evil. Jim set the tiara back on her head, the plait he did for her yesterday still over her shoulder. Silver reached out to her and mock caressed the side of her face, down her neck, tilting her up by the chin to meet his eyes.

“Look at _you_ , like a siren queen--Gods, Jim, you could be a mermaid a-singin’ on a rock you could!”

“That’s silly. You are silly. You’re a lying thief.” She wanted to kiss him then, but she didn’t. 

“Ah, nobody saw my going about. Well, there was one fellow, but he was quiet and blank. All in grey, probably a servant. Vaguely familiar, come to think of it.”

Jim wasn’t really listening. She lifted the tiara again, and laughed at it and set it on her desk.

“I’d like t’see you in it. Later, before your swabs all come a-crawlin’ back…”

“Hands on deck, Mr. Silver.”

The crewmen wouldn’t return to their posts until tomorrow, and some the day after that. Still, a couple of hands did come by, some already very merry and ruddy with mulled wine. Jim laughed with them, and sent them on their way, down to the little inns in Bristol. She didn’t see head nor tail of Silver for several hours, which suited her well, as she needed to remind herself of shipping commissions and consult her charts. Tasks that made her feel like a real captain. She was a real captain. 

As afternoon crept in, however, that familiar uneasiness came with it. The _Polaris_ was 

usually uproarious with sailors canting and Silver barking the occasional order, entitled to the role of quartermaster without ever being appointed the station. As she set down her quill, she heard only the lap of dockwaters, the easy creak of the hull.

There was a chill when she opened the door of her cabin, so she took her overcoat from 

the hook and stepped out. 

Down in the galley, the burner was quietly going, warming the empty cabins and cracked

barrels. There was no cook hopping between broiling pots. It was even more terribly quiet for the lack of Flint, and she found herself missing the bird, hoping that it hadn’t maimed her ship’s doctor during his stay as a hostage. 

Up on deck, only the calls of fishmongers and the rattle of carriages on dock. The yelling of drunks, and a light sleet of snow on the decks. It would be like Silver to disappear on a day of meaning, when it would hurt the most. 

“Bring a bucket up here, captain, this deck needs a-bailin’ while the snow is still solid.” Silver crowed from her starboard. Jim still subtly checked her right hand to know her starboards and ports. She wouldn’t have admitted that to Silver under pain of death. 

“You’re like to go slipping over the side, leave the job for some able seaman!” She tugged on her right ear self consciously and offered him a real smile. 

She knew it couldn’t last. He was a pirate, still. Robbing and threatening and liable to kill. She could tolerate some evils, but she trusted her line. She knew he would cross it, again, one day, and then they would be back in stormwaters. But for now, he was bailing filthy snow over the side of her beautiful ship, and she went downstairs to fetch a bucket and a bottle of spiced wine.

It wasn’t healthy, but it was home. 

-

Christmas morning at Trelawney Manor was a quiet affair, guests limping into the dining room one by one. Livesey nursed a piping hot cup of black coffee, pinching her brow. Trelawney hadn’t much to say, for once, and since it was only his closest friends, and he was groggy with yesterday, he had even forgone his wig. 

The doctor and the squire weren’t the only ones at the table, although Silent Sue was nowhere to be seen. The doctor’s lady friend was smiling into her jam and crumpets, and Mrs. Crossley and her two daughters were bickering quietly. There was another man buttering plain toast, dressed in a grey cable knit sweater. 

“Could somebody pass the marmalade?” He asked, his voice muted and forlorn. Squire squinted at him, setting down his teacup in disbelief.

“Good heavens, Grey. When did you arrive? I’d entirely forgotten you were invited!”

Grey set down the butter knife. 

“Last night. I was at the party. I left a gift under your Christmas tree.” He droned, eyes tired.

“Well, at least you’re here now.” The squire mused distractedly. “I find myself already missing young Jim. Rude of her, not to leave a note. I suppose they’ve little time for us sorry landlubbers. Odd sort of fellow, that husband of hers, wasn’t he?”

“I wouldn’t know.” Livesey sighed. “She wouldn’t permit me to see him. She acted most strangely.”

“S’not surprising,” Grey offered, “All things considered. I’m surprised you wanted to see him. I’m just glad that Long John Silver is out of the house.” 

Livesey’s teaspoon dropped on her saucer with a nasty clatter. 

“What in God’s name are you talking about?” 

“Strange, very strange, that you lot were alright with it. Never known such forgiveness, myself.” 

Livesey shot a sharp look at the squire, eyes blazing. The squire opened his mouth with a bemused smile, to reassure her that his guest was _not_ a dead pirate captain. Then he paused. Then he frowned, and set his own cup down. Then he grew very pale, his mouth hanging open slightly. 

“Long John Silver? Isn’t he dead?” Mrs. Crossley leaned forward, her tone one of church gossip. 

“Can’t be, I saw him upstairs, stuffing gold in his pockets in the trophy room.” Grey set about buttering his other slice of toast. 

“A pirate!” Mrs. Crossley cooed. “Well. I knew he was too _rugged_ to be an officer. Did he look Scottish to you? I think he looked quite Scottish. Jim did very well for herself!”

“Stop. Talking.” 

Doctor Livesey rose to her feet at once, brushing off the concerned hand of her companion. 

“Squire. Get me a musket and the fastest horse you have.” 


End file.
